Review On The Academic History Of The Specification Of Light Tone Character

The specification of light tone character was discussed repeatedly since national language established but not yet been determined. This paper is dedicated to collect and classify the suggestions of linguists about this question and meanwhile present the general context in order to provide a reference on the solution of the problem. The article first briefly introduced the historical origin of this question and the focal points of controversy about it.Then the article presents and comments the suggestions about the specification of light tone character in mandarin movement period(the end of the19th century to the thirties of the20th century), the popularization period(the50s to the mid-80s) and the new period(after the mid-80s).At the end, the author puts forward her own suggestion of this question.